The Unsung Hunter
by Shadowfire-X
Summary: A dangerous cargo, a sentient Reploid virus, escapes en route to HQ, where it was meant to be studied. Someone is out to kill Shadowfire, and disrupt the Maverick Hunters. Are these two threats one and the same? Or are there two completely different mo


36

The Unsung Hunter

By: Emily Burke

"_Nothing is given to man on earth - struggle is built into the nature_

_of life, and conflict is possible - the hero is the man who lets no obstacle prevent him from pursuing the values he has chosen."_

--Andrew Bernstein

June 24, 2130

Glancing out through the glass balcony door, I realized just how much of the year had gone by. The trees had already gone through the leafing process, flowers had bloomed, and some already died. There is a large tree outside my bedroom window, a dead oak. It must be centuries old, as it is nearly tall as the house. Many of the branches are missing, and those that remain are leafless and dead. It is, however, home to a trumpet vine that displays bright red flowers in the summer, much to our delight. That particular year, it was also home to a nesting owl. It was a sight to watch, a huge bird, flying silently out at dusk, and returning just as stealthily at dawn. The owl would normally come back with one dead animal or another to feed its chicks, three white balls of fluff that would screech endlessly until their parent's return. Their mother was persistently kept busy by her young. At the time, I felt just as henpecked... but not by any children...

Maverick outbreaks come in waves, a period of peace, and then a sudden burst of attacks. It was one of those times when the wave was cresting. This meant little sleep, and lots of patrols, many of which were fruitless. However, when the patrols _did_ turn up something... well... there was typically a mess.

As if on cue, my pager started beeping. I picked it up, and looked at the screen. 'Report to HQ'. Wonderful, always nice to start the morning with a bang.

I quickly put on my uniform, straightening it out as I went along. Too many medals on it. I really don't think I deserve them all, but my father always said that I did, and demanded that I keep them on the uniform. Fortunately, the medals were well-pinned, so they didn't clank together, and, therefore, didn't draw too much attention to me. I felt nearly sick at being stared at, admired.. as though my vast number of Maverick kills was something noble.

The Situation Room was disturbingly devoid of people. Signas and myself were the only ones there, which meant I would likely be going on a mission by myself.

"Sir," I began, "what's going on?"

Signas picked up a small, flat metal case, and handed it to me. "Start up your gunship and head to our outpost in Juneau," he started. "This disc needs to be taken to the base manager there, it's very important. I'm assigning you three X-12 Comet escorts, so, go at a pace that they can handle."

I nodded in reply.

"Oh," he continued with a grin, "take a heavy coat. You'll need it."

I can still remember thinking, _"I hate the cold"_. Signas dismissed me.

The flight to Juneau was almost painful. My Comet escorts were fast, but I had to dramatically slow the normal pace of my gunship for them to keep up. Otherwise, the poor bastards' engines would burn out. I spent the trip, for the most part, looking out the window. Lush forest and grassland gave way to mountainous upheavals, capped with snow and barren of plant life.

I also amused myself by listening to radio chatter. Most of it was commercial traffic... airlines and such... with occasional military conversation. Some of the chatter was obviously not meant to be monitored, heavily encrypted. The gunship's decoding systems broke through them all, and made for some more interesting banter. There was one channel that was, at first, rather boring.

"Falcon 7 to Black Knight," the chatter started, "come in, Black Knight."

"I read you, Falcon 7. What is your position?"

"I am currently inbound, closing in on the target." Target? Now it started becoming noteworthy conversation.

"Falcon 7," 'Black Knight' continued, "target has escorts." Static overtook the channel.

The ship's computer, EVA, started up an alarm.

"Warning, missile inbound." A display came up on the HUD, showing my position, the position of my escorts, and the missile.. Each was marked with a flight speed, and distance from my ship. The missile was closing fast. "Activating countermeasures." A 3D display of the gunship showed two rear panels opening. Each ejected a metal sphere. The spheres fell back a few hundred feet, and then switched on. The metal orbs contained electrical equipment, and started sending out a signal to 'confuse' the onboard computer of the pursuing missile. It worked, the missile hit one of the metal spheres, and exploded. The second counter-measure self-destructed, so no Mavericks could find it on the ground, and reverse-engineer it.

The two fighters that had been trailing us now knew that they were discovered, and peeled off, vanishing into the cloud cover.

"Commander," my wingman's voice came over my radio, "you okay?"

"Yes..." I replied. Why was I a target...? Why now? Perhaps the Mavericks thought that it would be an opportune time to eliminate me from the war. Or... the disc... I picked up the metal case, and looked at it. It seemed ordinary enough... The disc probably just contained the year's recruitment records. It was just more likely that _I_ was the one being targeted... not a disc.

An hour passed, we reached the halfway point of our trip, and I began thinking again. I am the Hunters' top pilot... and I am important to the Hunters... very important. Why would they have sent _me_ on a 'routine' delivery..? Why would they risk me for such a menial task?

I set the craft on autopilot, and took the metal case out from under my seat. I unlocked it, and opened it slowly. A shiny disc, three inches in diameter, sat within a foam cushion. I placed the disc into the ship's computer, and quickly copied the data from the disc, before placing the original back into its case.

Raising my eyes back to the HUD, I noted the current location of my three wingmen. One to the left, one to the right, and the other...

"Sir," came in the call from me left wingman, "your six o' clock dropped out of my effective detection range. Is he on your scanners, sir?" I stared at the scanners on the HUD, and tried to search for him electronically, but there was no signal, no response.

"Wingmen three and nine o' clock, do you know what happened?" I questioned. "My six o'clock is gone. I know a missile didn't get him." My wingmen seemed just as puzzled as I. Staring at the scanners, I tried again to find some trace of my missing wingmen. When I looked back out through the cockpit window, I noticed, much to my horror, that my two remaining wingmen had vanished. The scanners did not show their location... they were gone.

The sky darkened, far too fast to be natural. Warnings started blaring, the gunship's engines had stalled. All the emergency systems failed..! The parachutes, the retro-rockets, even the auto-repair, I could not save my gunship. The eject button was flashing red, warning that it should be used, and quickly. I hit the button. A few sparks issued as a metal panel above me was blasted clear, allowing me a view of the black sky. I was pulled down against the pilot's seat as it was rocketed out into the cold air, and I watched as my beloved gunship plowed into the side of a mountain, dying in a fiery explosion.

It then occurred to me... _I'm falling too fast..._ My parachute had not deployed. This was all wrong! All of the safety systems... everything... it had all been tested, it all worked! Why should it fail, now!? I unbuckled the straps on my seat, freeing myself from it. I spread my wings, but, I was falling too fast, and the force of the air snapped every bone, nearly tearing the wings from my back... as I screamed, I wondered, _since when had my wings become so weak?_ The pain was searing, but worse was my predicament. I was twenty thousand feet off the ground, and falling fast. Reploids are strong, but few have bodies meant to survive such punishment.

The forests and lakes below me begin to twist, and reshape, forming into a rocky, jagged, black landscape. The fall seemed to take forever, and I almost wished I would hurry up and hit the bottom, instead of being given so much time to contemplate my demise. I knew I was going to die, and there was nothing I could do about it. I was completely helpless to save myself. The way I was falling, the impact would shatter my spine, and probably break the back of my skull open... a messy end.

As I fell, I could see the entire landscape, everything, twist into the same blackness that awaited below me, and I knew it would devour _everything_. As I fell closer, the blackness reached up for me, forming a mass of dark tendrils that waved back and forth with slow, predatory motion. The tendrils plucked me out of the air, saving me from what would have been the kinder fate of simply hitting the jagged, rocky ground. A shiver traveled through my body as the blackness curled around me, and it was icy cold to the touch. I struggled, despite knowing full well that it would get me nowhere.

The mass pressed in on me, pushing in my armor, slowly crushing me. It covered my head...

"Commander!" I jerked back to my senses in the pilot's seat. All of my wingmen were in view. Everything was fine.

"Commander," my 9 o' clock continued, "we're going to break off our escort, so you'll have a clearer landing zone." My wingmen all peeled away. The runway was in sight, as well as its adjacent Hunter base. The runway was one of the few objects I could see that was clear of snow or ice. Everything else was blanketed, except a few walkways.

"I hate the cold..." I muttered, bringing the throttle of the gunship down. EVA took care of the tiny fly-by-wire adjustments... The landing was flawless, and, fortunately, I was cleared to taxi to an _indoor_ hangar within the base.

There was a great deal of hustle and bustle within the hangar. I shut the gunship down, and stepped out onto the floor, holding the disc, which rested snug inside of its metal case. A pair of guards led me out of the hangar area, and into an office room. The guards left me alone, to sit and wait in front of a desk.

I took a quick look around the room. The plaque on the desk read "Captain James Williams". The walls were decorated with photos of what must have been the Captain. He was a stout human man of average height. Gray hairs hiding in a thick brown beard betrayed his otherwise-younger appearance. In most of the photos, Williams was holding a fish, and wearing a thick coat. A sportsman.

There was a framed photo on the Captain's desk, a family photograph. Pictured were three people: the Captain, a young boy, and an older girl, most likely his children, as there was obvious resemblance. In all the family photos on his desk, however, a spouse was conspicuously absent

I picked up another framed photo, a wedding photo. The woman standing next to Williams was hugging her new husband, and her head was resting on his far shoulder, making it impossible to see her face.

"How was your flight?" I nearly jumped at hearing the voice. I stood up, and turned, shaking hands with Williams. We both sat down.

"It went just fine," I replied. "No worries. Here's the disc Signas wanted me to give you." I sat the case on his desk, and he peeked into it.

"Good." He looked back to me. "We have an important piece of cargo that you're supposed to pick up, and return to HQ. It's high-priority. Don't bother asking me what it is, or, 'who', rather.. I don't know. Some Maverick that HQ says they want to interrogate."

I nodded, shook hands with the captain again, and walked out. A cryo-tank was being loaded into the cargo hold of my gunship when I returned to the hangar. I tried to look into it, but it had been retrofitted with a metal plate that slid over the window of the tank. I shrugged a bit, and began the flight home, my wingmen tagging along as I took to the air once more.

I was distracted by a slight sound coming from back in the cargo hold. Setting the autopilot, I went to check on the cryo tank. It was intact, all the lights in the green, still running. I pushed a few buttons, and the metal window cover retracted from the tank. The window, however, was coated on the inside with a thick frost, all except for a handprint mark on the inside of the glass... I peered in through the hand-shaped hole in the frost, but the inside of the tank was dark, making it hard to distinguish its occupant. There were several wires in the way, as well, but I could tell that the occupant was clamped down. How, then, had the handprint gotten there? I moved the metal shield back over the window, and returned to the cockpit.

After several hours, HQ was in sight. As I steered the gunship in to land, the controls were suddenly jerked out of my hands. The ship banked south, away from HQ. I picked up the com device. "HQ, control of my ship has been seized by one of your computers. Requesting information."

The voice of one of the safety computers came over the ship's speakers. "Readings show a malfunction in your cargo's cryo tank. Cargo is very hazardous, and considered to be infectious. As per safety protocols, your ship is being rerouted to the containment facility of Gate's lab." The message was all pre-recorded.. how thoughtful. The machine continued, "please stay seated and remain calm." Then, the nose of the jet pointed downward, and the ship began a very hasty descent...

"HQ, there seems to be a malfunction, repeat, malfunction! One of your safety computers has taken over my gunship, and is-" my com device was cut off. I walked towards the controls, to see if I could take control back, but the safety computer then switched off the G-diffusers... My feet lost contact with the floor, and I was slammed into the back wall of the cockpit. I could, however, reach the hatch. I grabbed the emergency release handle, and pulled it with all my might, but the rogue computer at HQ had disabled that, too. I kicked at the hatch, trying to make it open, despite knowing full well that it was far too strong for my feeble attempts. I turned to the control panel, still aiming me towards the ground. "Let me go, you bastard! Let me out!" There was no response, though I did hear another slight movement from the cargo hold...

The flight path changed very suddenly, leveling off. I was dropped to the floor as the G-diffusers kicked back in. Running to the control panel, I tried to maneuver the jet, but it was still under the control of some other computer.. though no longer on a suicide run...

Gate's voice came over my com device. "My computers have your gunship, now, and are directing it to my lab."

I had to spend a moment gasping for breath before I could reply. "W... what happened? One of HQ's computers just tried to slam me into the ground!" No reply.. The lab was in view, though, as well as its attached containment facility. A hatch opened in the roof of the building, and the gunship quietly, slowly, descended through the opening. There were several hatches, each one below waiting to open until the one above it had sealed... no doubt some protection against contamination. The gunship was finally brought to a stop inside a small, fortified docking bay. I breathed a sigh of relief. A maintenance rig lowered from the ceiling, and moved over the jet.

"Gate? What's the rig for? The jet didn't take any damage.."

"Well," he started, "it's for administration of the nerve gas." I didn't have time to reply, only time enough to be overwhelmed by a feeling of intense betrayal. I held my breath, but Gate's voice came on once again. "You can't hold your breath forever." He was, obviously, correct. The next breath I took made me dizzy, tired. I collapsed back into the pilot's seat, and everything went black.

I was surprised to feel anything after what I had expected to be a lethal poisoning, but I awoke to the feeling of my right eye being pried open. A bright light shone in, but, other than that, everything was obscured. The light hurt, so I tried to shut my eye, to no avail. I could hear Gate talking. Apparently, it was he who was standing over me. "About time..."

Hearing his voice enraged me. He had tried to kill me. I lashed out at him, or, tried to... I was strapped down.

"What's your problem?" the scientist asked.

"You tried to kill me! Do you see no problem there!?"

Gate chuckled lightly in reply. "Don't be simple... not all nerve poisons are lethal, you know... I just had to make sure that you wouldn't give me any trouble.. in case you had become infected."

I felt relieved, but I also wanted to get my hands on Gate, and give the lab rat a good thumping... "You really enjoy scaring people, don't you?" I opened my eyes just in time to see Gate smirk. He undid my straps, and pulled my still-shaky frame into a sitting position. "So," I continued, "I take it I'm not infected?"

"No... you're not infected. You're fine.. or at least, as fine as you'll ever be, I suppose. I assume you're wondering about your cargo, as well?"

I quickly answered, "yes, who is it? I went to check on the tank early on in the trip home, and there was a handprint in the frost inside the tank."

Gate looked at a computer, then back to myself. "His name is Ikusu. That's all you need to know from me... You can find out the rest from your father... The two had sort of a relationship. Not to mention... Ikusu was notorious before you were created. I'm sure you'll be able to dig up all kinds of information on his sordid past in the archives."

Once I got to HQ, the first thing I did was enter a report about the faulty safety computer... _then_, I went to the archives. There wasn't very much information on this 'Ikusu', compared to what I would find out later. Here is what I found out...

Before he was destroyed, the Reploid scientist, Doppler, created a machine capable of resurrecting fallen Mavericks. The machine, called Limited, was very powerful in what it did, recreating the destroyed Reploids using their DNA, which it modified in order to bring them back stronger than they were before. It ran into trouble, however, as the rebuilt Mavericks were quickly destroyed by my father... but, not without laying some damage on him, first. Limited used some of my father's DNA, and twisted it into a virus.. a sentient virus, one which was meant to destroy him from within. One of Limited's Mavericks succeeded in infecting X with the virus, which soon took control of him. That must have been the.. 'relationship' Gate had spoken of. The virus was extracted by scientists at HQ, saving X. The virus was placed into a blank Reploid body for study, but, it soon came back to life, and twisted the body to suit it.

Needless to say, the powerful virus escaped, and went back to its master... Limited was working on a new project, resurrecting the infamous Maverick leader, Sigma... and, for this task, the machine had created a special piece of equipment. The microchip, dubbed the 'Nucleus', held the power to allow the Reploid that it was imbedded into the ability to revive him or herself indefinitely... It was a key to invincibility. The Nucleus was meant for Sigma, and the virus Ikusu 'aided' my father in order to get close to it, and steal it. After that time, Ikusu vanished... it was thought that his master had killed him for his thievery. While he was alive, and, despite not possessing the Nucleus, Ikusu had been virtually impossible to hurt. He killed human and Reploid with little discrimination, and had carried himself as a god among Reploids.

After reading all this, I flipped a few pages, and found an old printed-out photo of the culprit. He did look eerily like X... same height, similar armor layout, same body shape. His eyes, however, were a blood red color, with slitted pupils. Under each eyelid, and, going down each side of his face was a marking, a lightning bolt shape, bright yellow, an almost poisonous-looking color. His armor was a deep green with purple and red trim, and a lighter green bodysuit. The gloves, metal-plated, were tipped with short, slightly-curved claws.

Finished, I shut the folder, and placed it back into its appropriate place among the rest of the archived data. I walked over to X's quarters, and knocked on the door. It took a moment for him to answer. He opened the door, and looked at me sleepily, for it was late. He was even in his pajamas.

"Oh," I began. "I'm sorry.. I'm not used to you going to bed so early. I'll leave if you want me to."

He smiled a bit in reply, and let me come in, shutting the door behind. "That's okay.. I couldn't sleep anyway." He sat on the edge of the bed, and looked up at me. "I have some information for you, actually... That safety computer problem... it wasn't the computer's fault. There wasn't a glitch, per se. Someone hacked into some files and saw the cargo you were carrying. Whatever it was, they must have thought it was worth killing you to get rid of it." Apparently, he didn't know that I had been hauling his viral counterpart. "I'm glad you're okay." He put his arms around me, and gave me a quick hug before letting go. "Anyway... they haven't found out who it was, yet... they're looking into it." He glanced at the clock, then back to me. "You look really tired... Go home and get some sleep."

I returned home, which brought me into the middle of a different kind of situation. My wife had recently had a rather large argument with her father. Her father, Jonathan, was not a big fan of me, or dragons in general. The two hadn't met in years, and, when she tried to go talk to him, to tie up some loose ends, he became furious at her choice in spouse. He cursed her, hit her, and threw her out of the house.

She looked up at me, now. "I don't care what he says," she sighed. "He's just an old fool... I don't know what mother saw in him... he couldn't even protect her from being murdered." There were tears in her eyes, but they were suspended, as though some force kept them from falling. "He said terrible things about me.. about you.. and.. our son. I'm severing all ties with him... everything.. even the name he gave me." It is an elf custom that, when a son or daughter revokes their parent in such a manner, they change their name as well. They typically take on the name that their more beloved parent wished to bestow to them, before the other parent intervened, and insisted on it being something else. If the parent was simply disliked, the child would merely switch their parents' choice names around. However, when a parent was truly despised, the name that parent chose was excised altogether as a symbolism of the severance of ties. So, Serena Carina Nystari Light became Carina Nystari Light.

I sat next to her on the couch. "I don't believe... I have ever met your father?"

"Jonathan," she corrected. "You don't want to. He's a scoundrel. After mother died, he frequented every tavern in the city. He squandered our inheritance away on women and rum."

I put an arm around her shoulders, and pulled her gently against my side. She leaned her head on my shoulder. "I'm sorry," I nearly whispered. "Why didn't you tell me this before?"

"Because as much as I hate him," she began, "I knew that, if you knew about him, you'd confront him.. and.. you'd win. He's done many bad things, but, I'm not entirely certain that he deserves to die. He may yet serve some important purpose..."

For several moments, there was silence. "I'm sorry..." she started once more, "I heard about what happened with you today.. and I go off ranting about Jonathan. You must have been terrified."

"I was about ready to jump out of my skin..." There was another pause. "Where is Hasaki?"

"He's in bed," she stated. "He wanted to stay up and wait for you to come home, but, I knew you'd want him to get a good night's sleep." She smiled a bit at me. "You need some sleep, too. I'll bet you're exhausted." She took my arm, and led me up to bed, so we could get some rest.

The next morning, early to work, I sat in my office chair, and turned on my computer. The holo-screen turned on, and stated that I had an important message to read. It was from Zero, and read, quite simply, "check your desk drawer, I left you a surprise." I sighed a bit, it was probably some little prank from him. I opened the top drawer of my desk. There was a chrome-colored metal sphere there, about three inches in diameter. It had little etch lines in it. Eight spindly legs suddenly unfurled, and a head came into view, with a single red camera eye and a pair of sharp fangs. I slammed the desk drawer shut, and locked it. The thing was a mechaspiderling, commonly used by Mavericks and terrorists to carry dangerous toxins and viruses to a target, and inject the contents into said target. Still hoping it was just a prank, I scrolled down through the rest of "Zero's" message. It continued, "too bad about that poison. You're good as dead, now." Clearly not a joke. The person who sent the message had obviously meant for me to pick the spider up before it had unfurled, so it could bite me before I could do anything.

I tried to send a message to an emergency center, to get someone to dispose of the thing. However, my computer had frozen, and, I could hear the mechaspider clawing away at the inside of the drawer. I heard the lock click, for it had picked the lock from the inside with a sharp, thin leg. I looked around for something I could use as a weapon. There was metal pole, about five feet long, with the Maverick Hunters' flag on the end of it. I picked it up, and hoisted it up over my shoulder. My eyes were fixed on the desk drawer, which was suddenly pushed open. Seeing the glowing red camera eye, I swung the pole down. The end of the pole caught the creature, and smashed it, but, also made a very sizeable dent in the metal desk. The mechaspider dropped onto the ground, its head smashed in, sparking, legs twitching. I lifted the pole up, and slammed the sharpened end of it through the thing, finishing it off.

After reporting the incident, I headed back home. It was late in the afternoon, past dinnertime, and the sky was starting to turn dark. I opened the door, and walked into the living room. Techno waved at me from a couch, one cat-like ear turning towards me.

"How was work?" he questioned.

"Someone tried to kill me," I deadpanned in response.

"Well," he started, " at least it wasn't boring!" He opened up a bottle of scotch that he was holding, put it to his lips, and tilted his head back to drink. I sighed a bit as he swallowed. I made my move, grabbing the bottle out of his hand.

"Hey!" he protested. "That's mine!"

"It's not good for you."

He scoffed at hearing this. "We're Reploids... I don't _have_ a liver, and I'm sure as hell not going to get cancer."

"No," I began, "but, in two hours, you'll be staggering around, mumbling unintelligibly and bawling about nothing." All the while I talked, he made mocking motions with his right hand. He wasn't even listening to me. I slung my arm around, and released the bottle, sending it hurling into the fireplace. The bottle shattered against stone, and the fire roared as its flammable contents were flung out. My brother's ears went back, and he stared up at me with a frown.

"Now that I have your attention," I began once more, "we need to have a little chat. It's hard to feel much sympathy for someone who comes home everyday and drowns his sorrows in liquor."

"Is it that..." he started, "or... is this about you not looking bad for the Hunters?"

My wings tensed up, and the end of my tail curled. I had to restrain myself, I wanted to knock him in the jaw so badly. "You've already had a whole damned bottle, haven't you!? You know I'm not like that! I'm worried about _you_! You have an arsenal under your coat, and, for God's sake, I know you're not going to hurt anybody else.. but what about _you_? One of these nights, after a rough day, you're going to be all liquored up, and I'm terrified that you're going to put a pistol to your chest! You don't care about _yourself _when you're like this!" He just stared at me for a moment. I sighed in exasperation, and half ran upstairs. First, I peeked into Hasaki's room, he was asleep, the covers kicked away. I smiled a bit, and sat on the bed, pulling the covers back over him, so he would be warm. I turned, and started to get up, but felt something touch my hand. I turned my head, it was Hasaki, who had awakened, or, had been so the whole time.

"Dad?" he asked.

"What is it?"

"You and uncle Tech were fighting again, weren't you?"

There was a moment of silence, and I sighed a bit. "It's nothing you need to worry about... Now... anything interesting happen today?"

The boy shook his head. I brushed his hair back away from his face, and said, "get some sleep," before walking to my own bedroom. Carina was already in bed, but awake, reading a book.

"Gate called today," she stated. "He says you need to come in tomorrow, as soon as possible. I think you need more sleep, though."

"You know I can't do that," I replied. "It must be important, so, I'd better get there early." My wife sighed a bit at me, most likely in frustration.

"However," she began once more, "HQ also called. They say you're off for tomorrow. They don't want you overworking yourself, either." She smiled a bit at me. "I guess that means you're the only one without sense to properly care for yourself, then? How stubborn you are."

A slight smile crept its way onto my face. Thank God, a break from work, a very much-needed one, to boot.

I put on my pajamas, and slipped into bed with a sigh, turning onto my side, folding my wings, and curling my tail around one of the bedposts, as I always did. It kept my tail from flicking in my sleep, and waking my wife. I couldn't get to sleep, not right away. Questions kept popping up in my mind, mostly about the insidious cargo I had been carrying from the Alaska outpost. What on earth would the Hunters be doing with a creature as wicked and dangerous as Ikusu?

Next morning, I drove to Gate's lab, not terribly far away, out in the woods. It doubled as his home, and the living wasn't too bad for him, either. The small compound was the result of somewhat of a fortune amassed by Gate, combined with prowess in the design and construction of the entire facility. From the outside, the building appeared to be made entirely out of metal, with little bits of creative architecture here and there, that made it a bit more appealing to the eye. The building was flat-roofed, and the roof was about the size of a football field. Covering half of the roof was an enormous dome-shaped force shield, clear like glass, but immeasurably stronger. I had asked him once what it was, and thus learned that it was a greenhouse added simply for his own pleasure. There was a second visible building, connected with the main structure. This building was a garage and docking bay. Gate, in addition to having a liking of science, had an insatiable love of vehicles, and was somewhat of a collector. Amongst his proud collection was a Ferrari Enzo, discontinued over a century ago. He refurbished it, replaced most of the outdated pieces of equipment with their modern equivalents. Despite the banning of fossil fuel engines, Gate claimed he liked the "roaring sound" they made, and went to great pains to insert a noisemaker of sorts, which made the new engine mimic the sound of the old. He had perfected the sound so well that he was once stopped by HQ security, and almost arrested for using a gasoline engine... until he popped the hood. Needless to say, he was let go.

Now, I walked past the beautiful old car that I had become accustomed to seeing parked at HQ. I went up to the front door, and knocked on it. The door slid up, open. I walked inside to see Gate sitting on the couch, one of the few pieces of furniture in the house. The walls were bare of decoration, and there was little homey feel to the place.

"You're early," Gate stated, standing up.

"Yet, I see you already have your lab coat on," I replied.

Gate smirked slightly. "You have _such_ wonderful observational skills." The sarcasm was nearly painful. "Come on." I followed him out of the house area, down a hall, and into the laboratory area. He went to open one of the many doors, but it clicked. "That's odd," Gate mused. "I was sure this was unlocked. Just wait here while I get my key." He walked off. I sat there for a moment, and waited. There was a door across the hall, very heavy, with a keypad on it, and numerous other security devices. I was, therefore, surprised when the door simply opened up. My mind told me instantly that I shouldn't go in. It was none of my business, there was nothing to see, don't go through that door! It didn't matter, because my curiosity drove me through the door, and I didn't even notice when it shut silently behind me. There were several more security doors open before me, and I walked through them, finally coming to a room. The room had walls plastered in computers and computer displays, all running analyses and tests. The object of their attention was in the center of the room. It was a holding tank, metal bases, with thick glass, cylindrical in shape, and filled with a transparent fluid. There were so many wires and cables tangled around inside the tank that I couldn't make out what was inside. My sense then got the better of me, and I turned to leave, only to face a shut and sealed door. There was silence for a moment.

A voice came over a set of speakers in the room, and the voice sounded eerily like my father's, but with a wicked tone. "So..." it started, "my counterpart had _sons_... And, how powerful... They appear to have outmatched him. You're just what I need to get out of this wretched prison." Several cables that were hanging from the ceiling now lowered down, and twisted towards me. I backed away, trying to get out of reach.

"You're already in control of this sector, Ikusu," I said. "Why didn't you just use the cables to get out?"

"Because," he hissed, "they aren't strong enough! What makes you think I hadn't already thought of that?"

"I guess Gate beat you to thinking of that then... Still, I'm not helping you out."

"Oh, but you are. I'll _make_ you help me."

"These cables don't have enough data capacity for you to use them as control devices, Ikusu."

There was an unsettling pause. "Who said I need your whole body to break this tank?" Something hit me in the back, straight between the wings. I staggered forward, and the cables lashed around my limbs, and pulled tight. I shifted my armor into place, and tried to pull away, but it was no use. One of the cables was tipped with a sharp contact rod. The needle-like structure pierced my right arm. I could feel something flicker inside of me, and the structure of my right arm shifted to its Dragonsmaw cannon form, while the cables jerked my arm into such a position as to aim the weapon at the tank. I struggled for control over my arm, but I could do nothing. A blast of plasma issued from the weapon, and slammed into the tank, shattering the glass. The fluid spilled out of the tank, as well as Ikusu. His body from the waist down was melted into a thick, liquid-like form, a viral form. Cables and wires ran up the length of his back, and were jammed under and into his armor wherever possible. It must have been very painful, especially with all the tests pounding away at him. For just a moment, I felt pity towards the virus.

"Now, I have you all to myself," he smirked, his lower body reforming from the viral puddle. He stood up, and, despite being quite a bit shorter than myself, I was terrified of him. The visor in my helmet wasn't even reading him as a virus, or a Maverick, but I knew he was, and I knew what he could do to me.

Ikusu smiled up at me, narrowing his red eyes a bit. "So... you certainly don't show up very often in Maverick Hunter records... but.. I know enough... I have clearly selected the best host I could possibly have. Not to mention.. in this weakened state, I'll need a form to strengthen back up in. You'll do nicely. Now, this conversation comes to an end. Nothing ruins the antagonist like a poorly-timed monologue. By the way... I suggest that you not resist... otherwise... it's quite painful."

I kicked and struggled in the cables that still held me tight, but, to no avail. I could feel the hair stand up on the back of my neck, and I thrashed wildly, filled with an awful sense of dread.

"No! Get away from me!" He didn't listen, it didn't matter what I said. He grabbed me by the throat. A few thin wires appeared from under his wrist armor, and followed his fingers around to the back of my neck and head, where they squeezed under my helmet, and pushed their way through the skin, into a few data ports. My body stopped responding, and so I was forced to merely watch. Ikusu's hand, then wrist, then arm melted into the viral form, and melded into my armor, into my skin. It was a terrible sensation, one to make flesh crawl. His entire body melded into me in this way, and the cables held tighter as I struggled to keep control. Ikusu was very experienced, though, and quickly set up blocks between my brain and body. I could see, hear, feel... just no control. I could still speak though, but, only in thought.

Let me go! I screamed at him. You can't do this!

"Oh, how cliché," he deadpanned, using my voice, speaking aloud. "That's what they _all_ say." He started picking out pieces of my memory, studying them. Fortunately, he only took basics.. how I talked and acted, and, more seriously, how I fought.

The cables released my body, and Ikusu simply walked out of the security zone, into the hallway. Gate was there, a pistol in his hand.

"Why, Shadowfire," he began, eyes narrow, suspicious. "However _did_ you get in there?" He pointed the gun at me.

"Gate!" Ikusu started. "There must have been a malfunction. The door just... opened. I'm sorry."

Gate kept the pistol drawn, but eased up on his body stance for just one moment. That was all Ikusu needed. He backhanded Gate across the face, knocking him back. He used the four blades of the Dragonsmaw, stabbing them into the wall around Gate to pin the scientist.

"Now," the virus hissed, "you get your just desserts for deciding to prolong my stay in that.. that _dungeon_. You have only yourself to blame, too. You not only left my security too lax, but, you also provided me with the most powerful host I could ever possibly want. You failed him. How _tragic_"

"You won't get away," Gate grimaced.

"Another pathetic cliché, by another pathetic 'hero' archetype." Ikusu extended my claws, and paced one under Gate's chin, as though for some sinister caress. Gate tilted his head back, trying to avoid the sharp point.

Ikusu was clearly distracted with his current quarry, and so I took my chance. I tried to seize control back, and I did it as quickly and powerfully as I could manage. Ikusu staggered back, yanking the Dragonsmaw out of the wall, allowing Gate to run. The virus put a hand to his head, hissing in pain, but quickly putting down what semblance of control I had briefly taken.

"You caught me in a monologue..." Ikusu muttered. He ran down the hall, not after Gate, but, for an exit. Once outside, he used my wings to send us airborne, and out of harm's way. He flew far out into the woods, away from Gate, away from HQ. Several hours passed, and my wings were aching. It was getting dark out, and, finally, the virus began to descend towards the thick canopy. We came through the leaves and branches, into a sheltered clearing. Within the clearing, covered by vines and foliage, was a metal building, an old Maverick outpost, thought to be abandoned.

Ikusu landed softly, and walked into the building, which, though dusty, was furnished. There was some furniture in what looked to be a living room. However, there were cables and wires hanging from the ceiling, hanging down, making the place seem even more eerie. Ikusu sighed, "home sweet home." He walked down a short corridor, and into a bedroom. To my surprise, he shifted my armor away, and slipped under the covers of the bed.

What are you doing?

"Resting, you fool, your body is no good to me if it's worn out." Just like that, he fell asleep. I, however, my mind, rather, was still awake. The scenery took a sudden, drastic change, though.

I appeared in a dark room, with wires and cables hanging down from the ceiling, and two big, red, glowing eyes shining somewhere in the distance. Ikusu was standing in the middle of the room, armored, and looking rather unpleased with something.

"Ikusu!" a voice boomed from all directions. It must have been the voice, and eyes, of Limited. "You have disappointed me, Ikusu. For so long, you have been my loyal servant, and now, you have tried to steal from me."

"The Nucleus isn't meant for Sigma!" Ikusu retorted. "He is worthless! X will just destroy him, and then the _Hunters_ will have the Nucleus! I have done far better work than Sigma ever has! I _deserve_ the Nucleus!"

A cable swung out, and struck Ikusu in the chest, slamming him to the floor.

"Insolent slave," Limited hissed, the red eyes narrowing.

"I am not your slave!"

"On the contrary, Ikusu... that is all you will _ever_ be. It is my ultimate irony, you use others as though they were puppets.. and yet, you, my creation, are also my servant. And, you know the punishment for such disobedience."

Ikusu's eyes narrowed, he activated his weapon, and started firing at Limited's hidden body. The blasts, however, merely glanced off of the powerful armor.

The booming voice laughed at the feeble attempts of its creation to injure it. "You can't harm me, Ikusu... I'm your creator and master." A pair of cables whipped down from the ceiling, wrapped around Ikusu's legs, and yanked him roughly into the air, so he was hanging upside-down, facing his 'master.' A dim glow surrounded Ikusu's body, and, when it faded, his armor was gone, leaving just his bodysuit. Not even his helmet was left, revealing longish, wild, red-violet hair, a color leaning towards a bloody crimson. "You pathetic, thieving worm. How dare you betray me." Ikusu looked panicked, now that his master had taken away his protective armor.

I stood there, watching. Despite all that Ikusu had done, how horrible he had been, I wanted to help him.

The two cables whipped around, releasing Ikusu, letting him slam into the floor with a terrible impact. The virus grimaced in pain, and struggled to stand up.

"Now, my pet," Limited began once more, "for another fine, cruel irony... Despite all the coldness you showed your victims, it is the cold that will utterly destroy you."

"You _made_ me kill them!" Ikusu retorted. "I was following your orders!"

"And, you _enjoyed_ killing them. Don't worry.. it's just the way I made you. You can't help but enjoy toying with your prey..." he laughed wickedly. "But, thieving is totally under your control.. and, teaming up with the _enemy_ to steal the Nucleus... clever.. but unforgivable. For this, Ikusu, my servant, I have tired of you."

Everything faded into blackness, but, I could hear horrid sounds. Hard impacts against a body, screaming, struggling. Then, terrible, biting cold, a stinging wind. Vision returned, revealing a beaten, abandoned Ikusu in the middle of a cold, barren wasteland. The ground was covered in snow and ice, and dull, gray clouds occluded the sun. Ikusu's bodysuit was torn in places, and he was covered in cuts and bruises. Somehow, he managed to stagger through the snow, as though hoping he would find some salvation in the distance. The cold was too much, though. His blood was freezing as he walked, thickening, forming ice crystals that would cover his insides in little tears. Again, I was overwhelmed with an urge to help him, but, I couldn't move, for I was merely a spectator in his dream.

After almost half an hour, Ikusu finally collapsed into the snow. His skin was pale, and he was shaking, his body desperately, and futilely, trying to warm itself. After his fall, it took very little time for the cold to creep in and freeze the life out of him, while I was forced to just stand there and watch.

Ikusu jerked awake, bringing me back into reality with him. He was panting a bit, and took a moment to regain his composure.

Are you alright..? I asked quietly.

"Why do you care, _Hunter_?" Ikusu growled in response. "I neither want nor need your sympathy. Sympathy is for the weak." He stood up, and walked out of the room. He went into a small kitchen, ate a quickly thrown-together breakfast, then started down a long corridor. Ikusu opened a door, and stepped into a lab of sorts. He laid on his back on a metal table, and a set of clamps came out to hold my body down. There was a sudden tingling feeling, along with the sensation of flesh crawling. Ikusu unmerged from me, pulling away from my body as simply as though it were a cell dividing in two. He was armored, free of the straps, standing over me with a scrutinizing eye. I clenched my hands into fists, and moved a bit, just to ensure that I was in control once more. I took a quick look around the lab. There were several cryo tanks, some of them with occupants in them, as the tanks were running.

"All this time... I suppose my servants have all been destroyed in these years. I'll have to create new ones." Ikusu waked over to one of the cryo tanks, and touched a button. There was a beep, and the door popped open with a hiss, sending out a plume of cold steam. A still-sleeping Reploid came into view. It was a tall, lithe Reploid, with form-fitting armor. He was based off of a cheetah, with long limbs, especially the legs, as well as a long, armored tail. The helmet, covering most of the face, had black patterns on it that mimicked the markings on the fur that undoubtedly lay below. Ikusu pulled the Reploid out of a standing position, and hoisted it onto his shoulder. It looked somewhat comical, as Ikusu was quite a deal shorter than the other. The virus was, of course, stronger than he looked, like all Reploids, and placed his quarry on a table next to mine.

"The nice thing about cryo," Ikusu started, "is that, even when the occupant comes to, their body is still 'sleeping.' It gives me plenty of time to do whatever I please." As if on cue, the cheetah Reploid opened vivid, red-brown eyes. A cable shifted out from Ikusu's wrist armor, needle tipped. The sleepy Reploid jerked as the needle jabbed into his arm.

"It's very simple, really," Ikusu continued. "Just a little exchange. I take a DNA sample, for later use... and... insert a bit of my own coding." The Reploid lying on the table shuddered as the cable was withdrawn, shutting his eyes tightly. After a moment, he opened his eyes once more, but they seemed... empty. My own eyes went wide in revelation of what I had just witnessed. Ikusu had used his coding to eradicate the Reploid's mind, and turn it into a viral slave.

"As for the DNA," Ikusu began once more, "it serves me quite a useful function." His features began to blur, and change. His armor grew tighter, and started to change shades, as his limbs grew longer. A long, armored tail grew out from Ikusu's back, his helmet and face reshaped, and his eyes turned a vivid red-brown. He laughed when he noticed my rather stunned expression. "Hunters forgot to mention that little detail, didn't they?" He walked forward, standing over me, a perfect replica of the cheetah Reploid.

"Why..." I nearly whispered, "are you telling me this?"

"What are you going to do with this information, Shadowfire? You can't use it to harm me. I'm not that stupid. Besides... you would have found out, eventually, anyway... I figured I'd spare myself from annoying questions." His form began to shift and change again, and, soon, he had taken back his own shape. He walked over to a control console, and started typing. I quickly looked around the room, trying to locate anything nearby that could be used as a weapon. Conveniently enough, there was actually a plasma pistol lying on a counter about four feet away, close enough for my unstrapped tail to reach. While Ikusu's back was turned, I whipped my tail over to the side, snatching the gun. I slipped the end of my tail through the trigger guard, aimed, and held the trigger down. The entire clip emptied into Ikusu's back, leaving several charred, sparking holes, clear through him. Much to my horror, however, Ikusu turned around, not showing a flicker of pain on his face, but rather, a smug grin.

"Did you really think I'd leave weapons laying around," Ikusu said, "if I thought that they could hurt me?" Wires and blood vessels very quickly, and visibly, branched out inside of him, followed by bone, muscle, skin, bodysuit, and armor. He regenerated the damage nearly instantaneously. Ikusu snapped his fingers. Several cables erupted from the floor tiles. The cables seized my tail, and held it down, against the floor. Ikusu walked over to the edge of the table, and looked down at me. Once more, a needle-tipped cable extended from his wrist armor. The device snaked over me for a moment before stabbing into my arm. I jerked, and pulled at the straps, determined not to let him turn me into another slave. After a second, the cable pulls away, and I gritted my teeth, awaiting my sure demise, but, nothing happened.

"Your coding is too complex for me to infect... yet." Ikusu's form began to shift and change once more. His hair lengthened, and became raven black, smooth, and straight. His bodysuit turned black, and his armor red, with black trim. A pair of black, draconic-looking wings grew from Ikusu's back, along with a scaled black tail. Lastly, gold and green coloring bled into the red of his eyes, crept into the whites of his eyes. He looked exactly like me... except for one thing.

"Scars," Ikusu said, using my voice, "those are a problem. I'll have to eyeball it." He leaned over me, bringing him face-to-face with me. It was eerie, and sent shivers up my spine. As Ikusu studied my face, I could see a long, thin cut appearing on his face, over his right eye, down his cheek, and to his chin. The cut began to heal, forming a scar.

Ikusu leaned back, standing up straight, again, and said, "there," seeming satisfied with the results. "I'll leave you now in the care of my servant. I'm sure you two will get along just famously." The virus walked out through the door, out of sight, planning to do God knows what. His imitation of me was perfect. Out of nervousness, I began drumming my fingers on the table, but, there was a metallic clinking sound when I did so... My wedding ring. Ikusu had neglected to take my wedding ring, and, someone would surely notice that it was missing, it was something I always had with me.

I stared for a moment at the cheetah Reploid standing a few feet away from me. Perhaps I could distract him. "Hey! Look, over there! It's right behind you!" The Reploid was unmoved, and not amused. His eyes were fixed on me. I took another quick look around the room. My guard was standing right in front of the control panel that turned the table clamps on and off. I stared at the control panel, concentrating. I could feel something welling up in me, like a glow. The metal covering of the control panel began to glow red-hot, and there was a loud crackling sound as parts of the controls shorted out. The clamps over my waist, legs, and tail released. At seeing this, the guard made a leap at me. I swung my tail around, and managed to hit him in the gut, so he stumbled in midair, and went flying over me, and crashing to the ground on the other side of the table. Before the Reploid could get back up, I used my tail to pull out the clamps over my arms, and free myself. I leapt to my feet, coming to stand on the table, and shifted my armor into place. The Dragonsmaw activated, and I began charging it... now, I was in business.

The cheetah got up into a crouch, and then used his long, powerful legs to push himself forward, straight at me. I leapt upwards at the last moment, launching myself over my attacker. The viral slave, however, had very quick reflexes, and seized my right ankle as he swung beneath me, bringing my jump to a very sudden stop. As I was pulled down, I opened up the claws of the Dragonsmaw, and then snapped them shut around the Reploid's torso. I fired off several rounds, determined not to land myself back in restraints, again. The shots burned through the Reploid until there was nothing left of his torso but a burnt, partially melted metal husk.

Now, my new task was to locate and stop Ikusu as quickly as possible. I opened a wrist panel in my armor, and typed a command into a small keypad before shutting the panel again. I knew that, now, my gunship would be turning itself on, powering up, and flying towards my current location. I made my way out of the lab, and up onto the flat roof of the metal building. It took only moments for my gunship to fly into view, and land next to me, hatch open. I quickly got inside, and the hatch sealed after me. Strapping myself into the pilot's seat, I took manual control of the jet, and ascended into the dreary, clouded sky. It was beginning to grow dark, which would make my search more difficult.

The first thing I did was to put EVA in high-alert, which meant that nothing, not even one of HQ's safety computers, would be able to overthrow its control, save for by my discretion. The second thing.. I turned on the com device, and contacted HQ.

"HQ, this is Commander Shadowfire," I stated. There was a bit of background noise, and then, a rather angry-sounding control tower worked.

"Explain yourself, Commander!"

"Explain..? What are you talking about? I need remote access to the satellite scanners, pronto."

"You just killed the entirety of Hunter Unit Nineteen!" My eyes went wide. So... that was what Ikusu had been up to. I tried to explain, but the other end wasn't listening, and had simply blocked my channel. I did, however, manage to open up a line to home. Carina answered on the other end. Her face came up on the vid-screen, and she looked rather distraught.

"What's going on? HQ is saying I wiped out an entire unit of Hunters."

"Th.. they sent the Nineteenth out to.. to look for someone who was killing Humans First members. They didn't know who it was at.. at first... Then... they found you... or someone that looked like you... It can't have been you, you wouldn't have killed them. Why would they think it was you?"

"It wasn't me," I said quietly. I quickly explained what had happened with Ikusu.

"They," my wife started again, "they think you helped him escape. Gate knows different... He told me what happened... He said he tried to get hold of Signas, but he's off at some base in Tokyo, and they won't let Gate contact him!"

I thought about it for a moment, before saying, "sounds like an inside job. It would take someone in a powerful position to get all of HQ so stir-crazy like this. It could be the same person that hacked that safety computer. Just... listen. Do whatever you have to in order to keep Hasaki and yourself safe. I've got to settle this, now."

"Al... alright. Be careful..." There was a pause, and click, then the vid-screen turned off.

"Target located," EVA said. It gave me the coordinates. He was over the Rocky Mountains, already. "Target is northbound at twelve-hundred miles per hour." It appeared, as well, that Ikusu had managed to steal himself a transport of some kind.

"EVA, identify the transport," I ordered. There was a pause as EVA linked up with Hunter satellites. Every time EVA encountered a new aircraft, it searched for it in HQ's archives, via their satellites, and saved the information in its own database for later encounters.

"Unable to identify new aircraft," EVA stated. "This channel has been blocked from all Hunter satellite access." A hologram came up, and EVA outlined what it could find with its own scanners. A 3D shape appeared, that of a jet. It was small, about the size of an X-12 Comet. The wings were swept-back, and there were two tail fins, as well as a slight, distinctive 'hump' just behind the top of the cockpit bubble window. I recognized the shape. It was a prototype fighter that I had helped in the designing of, the new generation Comet. Ikusu had killed the Nineteenth Unit, and stolen the test plane that had been assigned to their commander.

"Set a course, EVA, follow the target. Catch up to it." The hologram shut off, and the jet blasted forward, now in hot pursuit of the runaway virus.

Soon, my gunship was once again out over the steep, snow-capped Rockies. I was closing in on Ikusu, now, about fifty miles away. Alarms suddenly started blaring.

"Warning," EVA began, "missiles inbound. Deploying countermeasures." It was like deja-vu, like the daydream I had on the way to Juneau. The two metal spheres dropped from the back of my gunship, and each of the two missiles slammed into one of them. I punched the throttle, and my jet shot forward. It took only seconds to, finally, catch up with Ikusu, who had slowed down for some reason. I shot up over the prototype Comet he had stolen, and flew directly above, about twenty feet away from him. I tapped a button, and the metal panel under my feet became transparent, allowing me to see straight down into the cockpit of the Comet. Ikusu was still in my form.

The Hunter aircraft that was in pursuit, an older X-12 Comet, flew up alongside, very close. I could see the pilot look into my gunship, then into the stolen X-13. His eyes went wide when he saw me sitting in two different vehicles.

Ikusu dove down suddenly, veering to the right, as well. I pushed the controls forward, and descended after him. I flew over the top of the Comet once more, and looked down through the still-transparent floor panel. Ikusu reached for the controls of the Comet, ready to evade me, but, I didn't give him a chance. I pushed the controls hard forward, and slammed the bottom of my gunship into the top of the Comet. There was a loud bang, and a bit of a jerk. Ikusu managed to use the Comet, however, to pull away before any real damage could be done. I saw the airbrakes of the Comet fly up, and, suddenly, he was behind me.

The floor panel had turned opaque once more, I didn't need it to be transparent, now. Now, I needed to get Ikusu out from behind me. I tried slamming on the airbrakes, but Ikusu did the same, preventing me from getting back behind him. I switched on my gunship's rear camera, so I could see behind, see what Ikusu was up to. The Comet was squarely behind me, and, a burst of flame and smoke appeared under each wing. Warnings began going off once more.

"Missiles inbound. No further countermeasures to deploy." I had run myself out of anti-missile units. I gripped the controls, and pulled them back. The nose of the jet pointed nearly straight up, but the missiles followed, and were closing quickly. Now, I pushed the controls forward, and twisted them to the right, putting me in a tight, descending corkscrew. One of the missiles veered off, and exploded, missing me entirely. The other missile managed to follow me, and exploded just off of my left wingtip. When the light cleared, I saw, much to my horror, that more than half of the left wing was gone. The corkscrew my gunship was in was now an uncontrolled one, and I was headed straight for the side of a tall mountain. I couldn't eject... if I did, then, the moment I left the spinning jet, the right wing would whip around, and slam into me so hard that the impact would, at the very least, knock me unconscious, and leave me plummeting to the ground far below. My best bet, though a sorry one, was to stay put. I tightened the straps over my body as the warnings continued going off. The engines were cut off, and a pair of rockets fired from the front of the gunship, dramatically slowing my kamikaze aircraft, but not nearly enough. I gripped my fingers tightly into the arms of my seat, and watched as the spinning landscape of mountain snow and jagged rock rushed towards me.

"Oh, God..." were the only words I managed to get out, for there was a deafening crash, and then darkness.

I awakened to a world of pain. Everything hurt, and everything especially hurt to move. There was also a piercing feeling of cold. I opened my eyes, and looked around. I was still strapped into my seat. The interior of the jet appeared mostly intact, but, I knew that the outside would be ravaged. The cockpit window was shattered, the pieces lying here and there on the floor. The lack of the window allowed the freezing cold wind to blow in, and carry snow with it. When I looked out through the front, I felt as though ice had hit my gut. The gunship had come to rest on an icy ledge, the rear half on the mountain, and the front half hanging out into open air. The slightest upset could send the gunship, and myself, plunging down the mountainside. I slowly, carefully, unstrapped myself from the pilot's seat, and stood up. There was a loud, metallic creak, and the jet tilted forward slightly. I paused for a moment, then bolted towards the back of the cockpit, towards the hatch. The jet tilted further. I threw the hatch open, and leaps out onto the snowy ledge. I watched, then, as my battered gunship pointed straight down, and fell out of view.

The cold was terrible, and the wind nearly blew me off my feet. The high winds also prevented me from being able to simply fly off the mountain. My gunship was programmed, in the event of an emergency, to send out a distress beacon before it crashed. However, I was unsure as to whether the Hunters would even try to help me, what with my being a 'traitor' and all, so, I began looking for a place to shelter from the weather. There was no shortage of caves, but, they were all so small and precarious that, were I in one if the mountain shifted even in the slightest I would have been crushed. Finally, I resorted to digging myself a tunnel down into the snow. The effort required to dig out the tunnel forced me to pant, drawing in more of the freezing air. By the time I had a small hiding space excavated, my fingers and toes were numb, and my lungs felt like they were burning. The floor of my little cave was made of smooth, wind-worn rock, and the walls and ceiling were snow. The space was just big enough for me to crawl into, but it was certainly better than being totally exposed. The tunnel opening, six feet away, provided just enough light for me to assess my injuries by. I could feel several cuts and bruises, but just barely, for the cold had begun to numb my skin as well. I couldn't tell if anything was broken, nothing seemed to be, though. After a few moments, I managed to curl up, wrapping my wings and tail around my body for warmth, and fall asleep. At one point, I remembered feeling a slight shaking feeling, and hearing a rumbling sound, but I was so tired that I simply ignored it, and drifted off again.

It was about five in the afternoon on a rainy day as I sat in New York City Hunter outpost, across the street from the rally. I had been in the outpost to attend a meeting, which was now over. It was mid-June. I looked out through the window, and across the street. A huge platform had been set up. It was surrounded on all sides by a clear force shield, which housed the people holding the rally. There were people flooding the entire street, but a line of Hunter guards separated the two groups who had come to see the rally. On one side were those who supported the people on the platform, all in this group were human. On the other side was a gathering of humans and Reploids. Some on both sides held signs, and everyone was yelling. The people up on the platform were Humans First group members, protesting against Reploids. They had chosen this location, across from one of the larger Hunter outposts, so that they could directly face their 'enemies', for the New York City outpost possessed an almost one hundred percent Reploid staff... many of whom had been assigned to protect the Humans First people as they rallied against them. At first, the crowd appeared to be relatively under control. Despite the palpable hatred between sides, there wasn't any violence... at first. The Humans First people stood on their platform as though they were a group of angels from Heaven, sent to smite some fowl demons. They acted as though their souls were whitewashed, and their motives were pure and good, as they stood there and belittled an entire race. The supporters of the group were many, gathered on the left side of the T-shaped line of guards. There were humans of every race and background, and they had all put aside their differences so that they might come together in order to uphold their 'righteous' cause.

"Reploids have no souls!" one man on the platform shouted. "They are nothing more than appliances that _we_ created for our convenience! Only we have the right to decide their future, and their standings. If a human destroys a Reploid, it is not murder, it's property damage! The recent case in Florida was preposterous!" The Florida case was infamous... A Reploid child in Tampa had been orphaned when his parents were killed by a militant wing of the Humans First group. A human couple, taking pity on the boy, took him in, nursed him back to health, and loved him as if he were their own son. A year later, the boy had been playing with his adoptive parents in the front yard when a Humans First member simply walked up and emptied a gun into him.

"It's ridiculous," the man continued, "that the courts even referred to the creature as a _child_! It's nothing more than a strung-together pile of wires and circuits, and synthetic materials meant to mimic life. That's all they are... mimics. They aren't alive, they simply exist, and, perhaps, they shouldn't even have _that_ privilege!" At hearing this, the people on the left side of the guard line, the supporters of Humans First, tried to push through the armored Hunters so that they could get at some of the Reploids on the other side, or even simply get at the Reploid guards, who were there to _protect_ them. Meanwhile, I stood up above, across the street, staring through a plate glass window in disbelief. My feelings had gone past disgust, and slipped into hatred. I hated the humans down below, I hated them in all of their self-perceived perfection and godlike purity. The hate in me was so deep that, for a moment, I gave serious consideration to going down there... I wanted to kill every last one of them. It would have been so easy, humans being frail creatures. I could fill the streets with their blood. As I thought this, I realized that it really wasn't that difficult to be viewed as a Maverick. I now understood why so many Reploids, despite the lack of any trace of virus, would go out of their way to slaughter humans. It was hate. Then, however, I forced myself to realize... I couldn't kill humans. If I did, it would make me not only a Maverick, but, it would make me just as low as the people across the street, standing on their platform and preaching their venom to the crowd. Still, the hate in me made me afraid... for hate can push a person to do anything... even the things that person is sure that he will never do.

I turned my head just slightly, and saw a reflection in the glass. It was X, standing behind me, silent.

"Is it wrong of me?" I asked. "Is it wrong of me to be angry at them?"

There was a pause, then, "No," my father replied. "It's just natural to feel angry at them. It makes me angry, too." For all the serenity in his voice, I never would have guessed how upset he felt.

"Do you hate them?" I asked.

"No," came the quiet response. "It would be wrong of me to hate them. They simply don't understand what they're saying. It wouldn't be just to hate someone for doing something they didn't understand was wrong. Besides... hating them would only mean becoming just like them..."

Now that my father's words had calmed me, I stared out at the scene on the street in sadness, and wondered if this was all we would every be viewed as by these people... appliances... property.

I woke slowly in my little snow cave, recalling the memory that had come back to me in my sleep. When I opened my eyes, however, I saw nothing. There was total darkness, and, parts of the cave had collapsed in on me. The rumbling I had felt earlier had been an avalanche, one which had imprisoned me in the tunnel I had built in order to protect myself. My body heat had melted some of the snow around me, which quickly froze into ice, creating a solid shield, one which was difficult for oxygen to penetrate. I had awakened from a shortness of breath, because my air was running out. Fortunately, as a Reploid (especially being one of flight), I had systems that enabled me to tell what way was up. I smashed my fist through the layer of ice, and started tunneling upwards. At the same time, I could hear something up above, a scratching sound. Something suddenly broke through the top of my tunnel, letting snow fall onto my visor. I dropped down a bit, and paused to see what the thing was. I saw two paws break through the top of the tunnel, letting sunlight spill down. A nose poked down into the tunnel, then pulled back out. There was a loud bark, and the sound of footsteps. I could feel something grip my forearms, and pull me out of what could have been my grave, and into a waiting blanket. The group of Hunters carried me into a waiting heli-jet, and strapped me onto a medical table. I shifted my armor away at the behest of a waiting medic, who started checking me over.

"I thought," I began weakly, with an audibly trembling voice, "that I was on your most wanted list?"

The medic sighed a bit. "Well, Signas just got back from his visit from Tokyo. He wasn't very pleased with how his MPs handled things... not to mention, some pilot gave us some evidence yesterday. This evidence leads us to believe that you are indeed not responsible for the deaths of the Humans First members." He took out a pair of special cutters, and sliced most of my bodysuit away, until what was left could equate to a pair of boxers.

"Hmmm," the medic started. "You seem to be recovering alright from the cold. You have some... abdominal contusions." He touched my left hand, and pain shot up my arm, causing me to grit my teeth. The medic continued putting pressure on the tender spot. "It appears you also have a simple fracture of the third metacarpal."

I raised an eyebrow. "In English?"

"Bruises, scratches, and your middle finger is broken inside your left hand. Means you won't be able to flip off the guy who was in charge while Signas was gone."

I stifled a grin, and replied, "not with both hands, at least."

The medic grabbed a handheld scanner. "Alright, hold still while a run this thing." He moved the scanner over my hand. "Doesn't look too horrible. No surgery needed, the bone's nice and lined up, it just needs to heal. Try not to move it." He disinfected the cuts I had, and wrapped the blanket back around me. It felt nice and warm, a welcome change from the biting cold of the mountain air.

Once back to HQ, I had a little meeting with Signas, in which he took back all charges brought against me, and placed them on their true perpetrator: Ikusu.

From HQ, I went back home, and was met with hugs from Hasaki and my wife. After greeting everyone, I retreated to the living room, and sat on my chair in front of the fireplace, enjoying the radiant warmth of the blaze. It felt wonderful to be home. Hasaki stepped up next to me. I lifted him up, and sat him in my lap.

"Dad?" he said, snuggling against me, "they said your jet crashed. Where is it?"

"Well," I started, "it was pretty banged-up on the outside. It's being repaired. They told me it will take about ten days for them to get it back to normal, again."

"Oh." The boy curled up on my lap, and I put an arm around him. The peace was quickly interrupted, however, by the sound of alarms. The house's central computer, EVA (the main Electronic Virtual Assistant, of which my gunship's EVA is an extension), began manning defense systems. Metal slats closed over the doors and windows, all passages to the outside locked. The holo-screen of the 'TV' popped up, and displayed security information. An armed vehicle had strayed within the perimeters of the defense systems, and the sensors had picked it up. Several screens split off from the main one, showing views from the cameras that had just switched on. The vehicle, a small, armored assault job, had come through the trees, into the front lawn. The thing was bristling with weapons, mostly of an anti-tank nature.

"Daddy?" Hasaki started. "What's going on?"

"Go upstairs, kid."

"But..."

"Go," I ordered. Hasaki looked disappointed, and made his way up the stairs, out of sight. I watched on the screens as automated turrets began rising from the yard, and aiming at the vehicle.

"Orders?" EVA requested.

"Warn them," I replied. "If they don't leave, use stun blasts."

"Confirmed." EVA began sending a warning to the pilot of the unmarked vehicle. The warning was more than clear: leave, or be fired upon. It was almost sad, the way we had to have the house fortified and defended. Unfortunately, having lots of enemies makes living in a fortress a blessing. The driver of the vehicle, however, did not seem to care for the warnings, and did not leave.

"The vehicle," EVA began, "is armed with prototype armor-piercing missiles." The image came up on-screen. The missile, instead of having an explosive inside, had a drill apparatus. The casing of the missile would unfurl clawed 'legs' to anchor the device into the armor of, say, a tank. Once anchored, the casing on the missile head would detach, allowing the cutting or drilling apparatus to go to work. Once the hole was drilled, a grenade could be dropped inside, destroying an entire vehicle. The things were still under development, but proven to be _very_ effective, and this vehicle was armed with an entire salvo of them.

All of the missiles launched out at once, eight of them. The defense turrets began firing anti-missile charges, which destroyed all but two of the missiles. One of the missiles crashed into the ground, and the other slammed into the metal plating over one of the huge front windows. I heard the thud of the anchoring claws slamming into the metal, and then the screeching whine of the drill. It would take a bit of time for the drill to get through the armor.

Carina came bounding down the stairs. She was holding a long, elegant Elven blade, with a slight curve to it. In this realm where plasma weapons are mainstream, this particular blade was deceptively dangerous. The blade was made of mithril silver, ensuring its eternal sharpness and indestructibility.

I shifted my armor into place, and both of us watched as the drill head emerged into the room from the metal plating. I raised the Dragonsmaw to fire a shot, but there was an explosion. The missile's drill head had been fitted with an anti-armor charge, one which had turned the fist-sized drill opening into a hole big enough to fit a small car into. A large, silver-colored metallic sphere, about three feet in diameter, rolled through the opening. It was covered in etch lines, and unfurled quickly. It was a standard mechaspider. The hind six legs were four feet long each, and the tips tapered to sharp, deadly points. The two front legs, however, were about five feet long, and each ended in three-clawed 'hands'. There were two more appendages like this, set slightly above and to either side of the head. I had never seen one with an extra set of legs, before. The oval-shaped head of the mechaspider, held slightly forward from the body, and tilted slightly down, housed eight glowing red camera eyes. I also knew that the spider, inside of its body, held an array of small plasma weapons and one large turret that could come out from its back, and a weapon that fired out metal cord catch-nets. What I was not prepared for, however, was that more stolen technology was implemented. The extra set of legs came forward, revealing a green-colored crystal on the back of each of the two 'hands.' The crystals began to glow, and from each of them came a solid energy shield. Each shield was two feet wide, and three feet tall, and the mechaspider, with all of its jointed limbs, could move them around quite freely.

I fired a few shots at the mechanized beast, but it quickly maneuvered its shields, blocking the projectiles. Carina tried to get around behind the thing, but it started moving, climbing backwards up the wall. It stopped about ten feet up the wall, and kept its shields up. A panel opened up on the mechaspider's back. I used its two front legs to reach into the panel, and pull out two odd-looking guns. It fired one of the weapons. A cartridge shot from the barrel, and split open, revealing three small, metal darts. A flechette gun. I leapt to the side, and rolled out of the way so that the darts stabbed into the floor. Why on earth hadn't the inside defense systems turned on!? The spider should have been vaporized by that time!

Carina managed to run up to the spider, dodge a blow from one of its bladed rear legs, and take a swing at it with her sword. The blade sliced through metal with ease, and the mechaspider's two front right legs dropped to the floor, sparking. The creature now had one flechette gun, and one shield, along with more weapons hidden within its body.

I fired a few more shots at the spider. It blocked a few of them, but some of the blasts took out a couple of its hind legs, as well, making it awkward for the thing to move about. My wife seized this opportunity, and leapt onto the thing's back. She stabbed her blade downward, thrusting it into the machine's short neck. The gun-wielding front arm of the spider swung back, and slammed into her, knocking her down, and leaving her stunned. I started to run to her, and felt a sharp pain in my upper right arm when I was nearly to her. Something slammed into me, the spider's front shield arm, knocking me to the floor. I turned quickly onto my back, just in time to see one of the sharp, blade-like legs coming down at me. I slammed my hands together on the leg, catching it just before the point could be driven through my breastplate. I engaged in a short power struggle with the spider, trying to push the sharp point away, as the creature tried to stab it into me. The spider, however, suddenly stopped pushing. The spider's movement had caused the blade, still stabbed through its neck, to hack up several wires and cables. The machine came to a complete halt, and shut down.

I stood up, and ran to Carina, who had since come to, and was standing up. I let her lean on me, to steady herself, as she stood up and looked at me with concern.

"Dear, your arm..." she nearly whispered, There were three metal darts stuck in my arm, the pain I had felt moments before, and foolishly ignored. I grabbed the shafts of the darts in my hand, and pulled slightly, causing more pain to shoot through my arm. The darts were deeply imbedded.

Carina grabbed my wrist, stopping me from pulling again. "Don't," she said. "They're barbed, you'll cause more harm than good."

"Go check on Hasaki," I began, "I'll make sure the vehicle is gone." Carina nodded, and started up the stairs.

I stepped through the hole in the wall, left by the explosion, and surveyed the area. The assault vehicle was gone. New invaders, however, were appearing from the forest, driving down the road. Much to my relief, the newcomers were Hunter vehicles. EVA had sent a distress signal the moment that the intruder had fired off its missiles.

The metal plating retracted from the doors and windows, and the turrets vanished back below the ground. Wanting to check on Hasaki, I headed towards the front door, but, a heavy hand gripped my good arm from behind, stopping me. I turned to face a tall, powerful-looking Reploid. He stood nearly eight feet in height, with heavy, gold-colored armor that covered even his face. It was Barnabus, the captain of Hunter Unit Eighteen.

"You need to be taken to the medical bay," he said in a predictably deep voice.

"But, my son," I protested.

"If there is any further danger," Barnabus continued, "we will handle it. You must go to have your wounds looked at."

I sighed, and nodded. A waiting group of medics escorted me into the back of an ambulance, which took me to HQ's hospital wing. I was quickly told to lay on a flat, metal table, with a (thankfully) soft headrest. I shifted my armor away, leaving the bodysuit, which the medics quickly cut the right sleeve off of. The pain from the darts was such that I barely noticed the added sting of an injection in the shoulder. The quick and conspicuous retreat of pain, however, was quite welcome.

I shut my eyes tightly as the medics started to work, and, once in awhile, there was a jerking sensation as a dart was removed. I only decided to reopen my eyes long after I felt the last tug. Gate was now the only other person in the room, and was standing at a computer console with his back turned to me.

"You're very lucky," he stated, turning to face me. "The darts had a virus on them that were you vaccinated against just ten days ago. You would have died."

"What about the defense systems?" I asked. "Why did the inside ones die?"

"I don't know," Gate replied. "You'll have to talk to Signas about that." The scientist walked out, and Signas walked in.

"Your security system was hacked," Signas began. "We're almost certain that it's the same person who's responsible for the earlier takeover of your gunship."

"This can't go on," I muttered. "First, it was just me... now my family is in danger. If this person isn't found quickly..."

"We're working on it," Signas said. "It's difficult. From what I'm told, this person is covering his tracks extremely well." There was a short pause. "Zero wants to talk to you, by the way. You need to go to his office before you leave."

I knocked slightly on the metal door leading into Zero's office. The door slide open, and I stepped in. Zero was sitting in his chair, with his armored boots up on the desk, looking bored. His feet, notably, were resting on a stack of paperwork. Zero hated paperwork, always did. He preferred combat.

"Ah, you live!" he playfully exclaimed.

"Do I?" I muttered.

"You do, indeed. In fact, I'm going to be having a meeting with someone shortly... I figured you'd like to be present."

"Who are you meeting with?"

"Well," Zero began, "the head of the investigation wants to meet with me, on account that it was my email address that was used to send you that message... the one that said to look in your desk." Zero sat up straight, putting his feet down on the floor. "Might as well have a seat, I figure, if anyone, you have the right to hear what's being said."

I sat in a chair against a side wall, and watched as the door opened. The lead investigator stepped in, a Reploid, right behind him was a human woman, the vice investigator. The Reploid wore jungle green armor that covered his entire body, including his face, so, I didn't get a very good look at him. The human, however, was wearing a simple uniform, one that designated her as an electronics expert and technician. She looked to be in her early thirties, with shoulder length brown hair, and hazel eyes.

"Have a seat," Zero requested, and the two sat down. "Lead investigator Gerard, and..?" Zero stopped, glancing at the woman.

"Vice investigator Joanna Summers, sir," the woman stated.

"We tracked the signal that hacked your computer," Gerard, the Reploid, began. "It came from within this base, and stayed connected for a total of forty-three seconds while your computer was being used to send a message to Commander Shadowfire. Records state that you were out on a patrol during that time, correct?"

"Yes," Zero said. "That's right. I was in Sacramento."

"Do you normally leave your computer on while you're away?"

"No. It was shut down. Why?"

"Well," Gerard started once more, "it takes much more skill to invade a computer that is shut down. One would have to turn the computer on remotely, first. It takes a lot of technical savvy and good equipment to do that. Knowing that your computer was shut down gives us a hint to investigate the people working in, perhaps, research and development."

"I see," Zero said quietly. "Do you have any idea of who could be responsible? Have you been able to pick out any names?"

"There has been some suspicious activity in the weapon research labs," Joanna stated. "A few blueprints are not accounted for, and some prototype equipment has gone missing, which would explain why the mechaspider that showed up at Commander Shadowfire's house was so well-equipped."

The rest of what Joanna and Gerard talked about all revolved around things I already knew... The two were dismissed by Zero, and left the room to "continue their investigation."

Only minutes had passed from the meeting at Zero's office before I was summoned to Signas's office. I sat in front of his desk as he looked up at me from a mound of paperwork.

"Shadowfire," he began, "we're having some problems in the sector containing Tampa, Florida. Twenty-seven Humans First members and four Hunters have turned up dead within the past hour."

"Any specifics, sir?" I questions.

"They appear to have all been killed be way of melee attacks. Slash marks on most of the victims, the spread of which matches the placing of fingers on a human hand. Some of them were torn apart, quite literally. However, the bodies of the Hunters are relatively unscathed as compared to the Humans First members. Most of the Hunters appear to have been killed quickly, from behind."

"Ikusu?"

"It's a possibility," Signas stated. "He is certainly powerful enough to inflict that type of damage... but the condition of the Hunters' bodies doesn't seem to be in his style. One would think that he'd want to kill them... more slowly. We currently think it more likely that the perpetrator is a Maverick in an early stage of infection, or one that's managed to keep his mind relatively intact."

"How so?" I asked.

"Well, once infected, most Mavericks will kill Hunters and humans with equal ferocity. To them, both groups are equally detestable. Either way, I'm assigning you to this mission, and, you're being paired with Zero."

"How will we get there? My gunship is still under repair."

"There is an Athens-class battle cruiser leaving from here tomorrow," Signas said. "It's going to Tampa to change out crews for the purpose of an expedition to our lunar outpost. You are to report to the shipyard tomorrow morning at four, pier twelve."

It was nine at night when I got home from HQ, and I went straight up to my son's room, to make sure that he was unharmed from the earlier attack. He was lying in bed, asleep, so, I let him be, and went off to get some sleep of my own. It appeared, when I walked into my room, that my wife was already asleep, but, when I went to lay down, she turned to face me.

"Are you alright?" she asked.

I nodded. "Yes... and you?"

"Just a little bruised. I'm fine." My anxiety for the next day's mission must have been palpable... she seemed to notice, somehow. "Sweetie, what's wrong?"

"Mission tomorrow," I replied.

"After that attack!?" Carina exclaimed. "I'd think they'd give you some resting time! You'll be exhausted!"

"They think Zero and I are the only ones who can handle this... It may very well be true, considering who we might be dealing with."

At three-fifty the next morning, I was armored, and standing at pier twelve of the shipyard. Sitting before me was a massive craft, an Athens-class battle cruised. The ship was seven hundred feet long. The craft widened from front to back, the sides of the rear one-third portion were nearly flat, forming relatively short wings. The ship's title, "_Noble Blade_," was painted on the side. Overall, the design was reminiscent of twenty-first century space shuttles, and that, indeed, was the purpose of the _Blade_. It brought supplies and crewmen to and from lunar outposts and geosynchronous space colonies, home to millions of people. The _Blade_ was heavily armed with all manner of artillery, for the journey to the outer colonies, those that belonged to the military, was dangerous. There was always the possibility of an attack by either pirates or Mavericks. Of over one hundred space colonies at the time, military outposts accounted for nearly forty percent, and were used to conduct zero-G testing, and other experiments that Earth's physics would not permit.

I walked under the massive ship, held up by maintenance rigs and landing legs, and stepped onto a platform that raised me into the belly of the _Blade_. The Athens cruisers were very new, only three of them in existence at the time, and, as a standard, contained forty levels from top to bottom. My current destination was thirty-seven, in the barracks, where Zero supposedly was.

From the loading platform, I stepped onto a gravity lift, another new innovation, saved especially for space-faring cruisers.

"Level thirty-seven," I stated. A glowing, circular platform appeared underneath my feet, and began lifting me swiftly through the cylindrical elevator shaft. It took seconds to reach my destination, at which time the platform came to a quick halt, and I stepped out into the barracks. The barracks was made up of hallway after hallway, lined with bedrooms. Each bedroom had one bunk bed, an adjacent bathroom, two desks, two computers, and one holo-projector. There were currently very few crew members in the barracks area, making Zero rather easy to find. He was in one of the bedrooms, lying on the lower bunk, awake, and fully armored.

"Hey, Zero," I greeted quietly. Zero merely waved in reply. Still tired, I crawled up to the top bunk, and flopped onto my back. I removed my helmet, placing it at my side, and rested my head on the pillow.

"Joanna Summers disappeared," Zero stated. I turned so I was on my side, and frowned slightly.

"When did this happen?"

"The door to her quarters was torn off the hinges, this morning. Probably someone not wanting her to talk. Perhaps your hacker."

I sighed, and turned the other way, to face the wall. Zero flicked the lights off, as though hoping it would help both of us sleep.

"Why are you doing this?" Zero asked.

"I was ordered to," I replied.

"No," Zero objected. "Not this mission... this job. Why are you in the Hunters?"

"What else would I do? It's not like I can take up another line of work... with... what I am, and all..."

"Well, it's not like you have to kill people," Zero stated. "I mean... you could get a desk job, stick with the research and development. It's a lot less dangerous. You've got a family and stuff... so, why do you keep risking your neck? Especially since it's the fault of humans that you can't live a normal life."

It took a moment for me to think it over, though the answer that came to me was rather straight-forward.

"It's the right thing to do," I almost whispered. "Even if they hate me."

It was late at night when Zero and I began our patrol in the Tampa outskirts. We had spent all day in the city's Hunter outpost, resting up.

"Time to split up," Zero sighed. "We'll cover more ground, that way."

"You know, bad things always happen when the two main characters split up," I joked. "Don't you ever watch any movies?"

Zero chuckled lightly, and split off in another direction, leaving me alone with only the night.

The city was all but abandoned. Most everyone was indoors, asleep. Those that were outside were either forced to be... or were up to no good.

The silence was broken by the sound of a scream. A human man, around thirty, came tearing out of an alley, and running towards me. He was looking behind him as he ran, and, as such, slammed into me, nearly knocking himself to the ground. I grabbed his arms, to keep him from falling, and helped him steady himself.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Y... you gotta... come quick," the man managed to say between gasps. "It got someone... it got this woman."

"What? What got her?"

"S.. spider."

"Where?" I questioned.

"Down the alley." At this, the man turned tail, and ran.

I stepped into the alley, and looked around. There was nothing overly suspicious. It was just an alley. I began walking, and, as I walked, something strange began to happen. There was a street at the end of the alley, and some buildings on the other side... this scene began to grow fuzzy as I walked closer. An image began to appear, faded, over the street... a wall. Eventually, the image of the wall was more clear than that of the street. The street was nothing more than a hologram, covering the dead-end that my visor finally saw through to. There was no woman... I had been tricked.

Realizing my error, I turned quickly, planning to leave the alley the way I had come, but the exit was blocked. A mechaspider stood no more than twenty feet away from me, its eight glowing red eyes fixed on my position. Rather than fight it in a closed space, I decided to try and get behind it. I leapt, spreading my wings, and flew upwards. My flight did not last for long, however. I struck something thirty feet off the ground, and was quickly stopped. Something had entangled me... a web. I pulled against the strands that the mechaspider had placed, only succeeding in further ensnaring myself.

The spider began its ascent up the alley walls, drawing closer with frightening speed. It crawled onto the web, out of my view. My breath caught in my throat as I felt it seize my left arm in its claws. I tried to pull my arm away, but the webs still held firm. There was a sharp stab as two fangs pierced into my arm, and a burning wave as the mechaspider pumped in the contents of its venom sacs, which I prayed was not digestive acid. Thankfully, the burning soon died, replaced by a feeling of heaviness, especially in my eyelids. My mind was suddenly unable to focus on the task of escaping, and began to concentrate more on sleeping. Everything faded away.

I awoke to a loud slamming sound, somewhere uncomfortably close to my head. My eyes snapped open, and I quickly surveyed my surroundings. My arms were sore, and I was upright. I was chained to a metal pole with my wrists tied above my head, which had forced my arms and shoulders to bear my weight all the time I was asleep. My tail had been wrapped around the pole a couple times, and chained in place. I tried to move my wings, but they were folded, and chained. Only my legs were free. There was something attached to the armor of my right wrist, a device of some sort. It was disabling my ability to shift the Dragonsmaw into place.

The pole I was chained to stood in the middle of a dilapidated-looking room with cracked concrete walls and a drippy ceiling. A few incandescent bulbs cast an eerie light into the otherwise dark room. I looked up to see that old metal rafters criss-crossed the ceiling, but there were no skylights or windows of any kind. Hoping to escape, I gave a sharp yank to the chains around my arms, but the spider's venom had left lingering affects, and I was not yet strong enough to free myself.

Something moved in the shadows before me, forcing me to refocus my attention. I could finally make out a human figure, but only in silhouette.

"Who's there?" I called out, tensing up.

The figure stepped into the light. It was a woman in her thirties, with shoulder-length brown hair and hazel eyes...

"_Joanna_!?" I hissed. The revelation struck me hard. She was the hacker. She had tried to kill me, before, and, now, she was likely going to try again.

"Of course," Summers muttered. "I'm surprised you didn't figure it out sooner... I'm at the top in the research and development department. I have access to nearly all blueprints and prototype models. I can override the safety computers at HQ."

"Why do you want me dead?" I asked, trying to get straight to the point. My question caused Joanna to narrow her eyes, and exude a palpable sense of hatred.

"Because you are the twisted, deluded pinnacle of a terrible race. One that needs to be extinguished so that mankind may survive." I suddenly recognized Joanna... recognized her from somewhere before... New York City... the rally... She had been standing on the stage at the Humans First rally, just behind the group leaders!

"I remember you," I growled. "You're in Humans First."

"Correct," she replied, "and I was right under your nose, all this time." There was something in Joanna's hand, I noticed... a metal bar, about three feet long. She lifted it up, and swung it at me, and there was nothing I could do to block it. The end of the bar slammed into the left side of my helmet. The impact jerked my head to the right, but didn't so much as dent my helmet. Joanna swung the pole again, this time aiming for a more vulnerable spot. The bar connected hard with my stomach. The pain made me double over, and pull my knees up to my chest, allowing my leg armor to shield my abdomen. Joanna smirked at my efforts. She held the bar horizontally, with one hand on each end, and placed the middle against my throat. The bar was pushed forward violently, forcing my trachea shut. I struggled to breathe, and began to choke.

"The only thing even remotely alive about your kind," Joanna growled, "is that you can die."

The bar was suddenly ripped out of Joanna's hands. She gasped in surprise as Ikusu stepped into the light, now nonchalantly swinging the bar back and forth in his right hand, and humming an odd tune. Ikusu focused his red eyes on Joanna.

"Hello, love," the virus greeted. He lifted the bar up, holding it like a sword, and plunged it forcefully through the center of the woman's chest. Joanna collapsed, and a pool of blood began to form underneath her body. Something fell away from her right hand, and roll a short distance before falling on its side... a wedding ring.

"Don't tell me you feel _guilty_," Ikusu scoffed. There was an uncomfortable pause.

"I suppose you're going to kill me now," I muttered.

"No," Ikusu quickly replied. His answer shocked me.

"Why not? You killed those other Hunters..."

"Only because they got in my way. Besides... I owe you for helping me escape... whether willfully or not."

"But... it's your job to kill Hunters," I stated. "That's why you were created." Ikusu crossed his arms, as though annoyed at my confusion

"I did not relish my former position as Limited's servant. I was forced to kill Hunters... and was reprimanded whenever I destroyed a Maverick. Truth be told, I have a better liking for the nature of Hunters than Mavericks... though your causes both seem equally blind to me. Did you think I was a mindless killer?"

"I... guess I did," I nearly whispered.

"I'm not mindless," Ikusu stated matter-of-factly. "I just think differently than yourself and others do."

"What were you doing here, in Tampa?"

"Trying to find your hacker. The main reason she chose to try and crash your jet at that particular time was because I was on board, and I do love the taste of revenge."

There was a banging on the metal door leading into the room.

"Well," Ikusu began, "what a shame. It was very interesting to know you... but your rescue party is here. I do hope we meet again." The virus turned, and began walking away, soon vanishing into the shadows.

The metal door was knocked off of its hinges, and Zero came into view. He took a few cautious steps forward, looked around, and then came running once he spotted me. Zero grabbed hold of the chains wrapped around me, and simply snapped them with his hands. No longer held up, and still suffering from the affects of the spider venom, I fell forward. Zero caught me before I hit the ground, and lifted me up in order to carry me. He glanced at Joanna's body.

"I guess she finally got what she deserved," Zero mused, giving the woman's body a bit of a kick. I couldn't help but be taken slightly aback by the disrespectful gesture... but I said nothing.

"Time to go back to the base," Zero said.

Once back in the Tampa Hunter base, I was promptly taken to the hospital wing, and placed on a table for examination. I shifted my armor away, and, once again, my bodysuit was cut down to little more than a pair of shorts. Without anything in the way, I could see that my legs, arms, and stomach were riddled with bruises. Apparently, Joanna had had a go at me with the bar while I was still unconscious. The doctor, however, seemed more concerned with the bite left behind by the mechaspider.

"These punctures are deep," the doctor proclaimed, "and there is still a lot of poison circulating in your body." The bite was disinfected, and bandaged.

I was taken from the exam room and placed in a hospital bed, to recuperate and get some rest. It wasn't long, however, before Zero walked into the room.

"For how much you hate hospitals," Zero began, "you sure end up in them a lot." He pulled a chair up next to my bed, and sat down.

"How did you find me?" I asked, curious.

"I received a distress signal from your location." I had not sent a distress signal...

"Ikusu."

"What?" Zero questioned.

"Ikusu must have sent the signal."

"That scum?" Zero said, frowning. "Why would he want to help you? He's a damned virus."

"He said that he owed me... he also killed Joanna before she managed to choke me to death. After that, Ikusu had the chance to infect me, or kill me... and he didn't. He just left." Zero sighed thoughtfully, silent for a moment.

Zero said, "I guess that means Joanna was the hacker."

"Yeah. She was a Humans First member... That's why Ikusu was down here... he said he was looking to kill her. Now that he's done that, he'll probably just move on."

"What makes you say that? Don't you think he'll just keep killing folks here?"

"No," I stated. "He seemed mostly like he just wanted to be left alone, now that Limited doesn't have him at his beck and call anymore."

"Well," Zero started. "Guess that means this mission is over, but I doubt that Ikusu will stay quiet for long." The Crimson Wonder stood up, and walked out of the room, turning the lights off on the way.

My thoughts quickly turned to Joanna... There was a laptop next to the bed, which the Hunter base had supplied so that I could access the database at HQ. I turned the laptop on, and began searching for information regarding Joanna Summers. Her husband, Paul Summers, was dead. According to the file, he had been murdered by a Maverick two years before. The deceased couple were also the parents of one living child, which sent me searching the database for yet another file.

Jasmine Summers, Paul's child from a previous marriage, was twenty years of age, and, ironically, enlisted in the Hunters. She was stationed at HQ as a medical technician, an amazing feat for a human of her age.

The door opened suddenly, letting light flood into the room. I winced at the sudden brightness, but my eyes quickly adjusted. There was a doctor standing in the doorway, and he quickly noticed my use of the laptop.

"Sir," he began, "it's three in the morning. I would advise that you put that thing away, and get some sleep."

I sighed softly, and turned the computer off. "Very well... sorry." I set the laptop back on its stand, and leaned back, laying down once more. The doctor, satisfied, shut the door and walked out.

Without the laptop to distract me, I felt a sudden heavy weight on my chest. It wasn't a real weight, per se, but the burden of responsibility. I was present at Joanna's death, and, therefore, morally obligated to inform Jasmine of her passing, and ensure that she receive her mother's wedding ring.

The next day brought a quick return flight to HQ. I was immediately taken to a quarantine in the hospital wing, to make absolutely ensure that Ikusu had not infected me with any virus. In an amazing bit of irony, it was Jasmine Summers that was assigned to look after me during my stay in quarantine. After all, if I was infected... a human would be at lowest risk to catch a Reploid virus.

Jasmine walked into the room, looking at a slip of paper in her hands. Her hair had been dyed a deep purple color, not an uncommon practice at the time, though it seemed to accentuate her features, rather than detract from them. Her eyes, a blazing green, were especially brought out by the contrasting color of her straight, shoulder-length hair. She had a soft-face, and an equally soft air about her.

Jasmine set the paper down, and looked to me. Despite my involvement in her mother's death, she smiled at me.

"Everyone is glad to have you back," she stated. It made me feel ashamed that she would greet me so warmly after what had happened.

"I.. I have something for you," I said, holding the ring out to her. She took it quietly, and slipped it into her pocket.

"Do you hate my mother?" Jasmine asked.

"No," I sighed. "But... do you hate Reploids..? After what happened to her... and your father?"

Jasmine shook her head. "How could I? A Reploid saved my life." She pulled up her left sleeve, revealing a long scar on her shoulder, all the way around. It was the kind of scar left by the placement of a prosthetic arm.

A memory came onto me like a storm. An eighteen-year-old girl with dyed purple hair and blazing green eyes in New York City. A Maverick, armed with a beam saber, leapt from the building above, and tried to kidnap the girl, who bravely fought back. As a consequence, the Maverick put his blade through her upper left arm, severing the limb. I was on patrol, and had destroyed the human girl's attacker. By then, the girl was bleeding quite heavily, so, I tore a strip of bodysuit from around my waist, and used it to tie a tourniquet around the remains of her shoulder.

"You picked me up," Jasmine began, "and flew me straight to the Hunter base. You paid a world-class surgeon to make my new arm. Your kindness inspired me to join the Hunters... I always wanted to be a doctor... Dad always told me I had a talent." Jasmine held up a vial of blood that she had taken from my arm. She had been so quick about it, and I had been so absorbed in memory... I hadn't even noticed. She was very skilled, indeed.

"I'll go have this tested," Jasmine stated, placing the vial in a sealed case. "I'll make sure you know the results as soon as I find out."

As Jasmine Summers stepped out of the room, I was amazed... I was amazed at how something that seemed so trivial, so insignificant, could become something so astonishing. To me, a nameless face at a protest became Joanna Summers. Joanna Summers, plagued by memories of her husband's death, became a murderer. A brave, injured teenage girl became Jasmine Summers. Jasmine Summers, because of my intervention, lived, and became a caring, brilliant doctor.

The test results soon came back and were, thankfully, negative. No traces of virus anywhere. On top of that, I was sent home on vacation. I had barely made it through the door when Hasaki clung to my leg, nearly tripping me up.

"Daddy!" the boy exclaimed, a grin on his face. My wife quickly picked the boy up, before I fell over him.

"Don't trip your father," Carina said, before setting the boy down, and giving me a hug of her own. I was still tender from the beating I had received, and inadvertently winced, causing my wife to release me.

"I'm sorry," Carina apologized, "I didn't mean to hurt you."

"I'm alright..."

"It's very late," Carina stated, "and you must be exhausted. Go upstairs and lie down. I'll make you something to eat, since you missed dinner." I started to protest, but my wife gave me a light push towards the stairway. Rather than argue, I went ahead upstairs, pulled my pajamas on, and crawled into bed, propping myself up with a few pillows. I shut my eyes, trying to make myself relax, when I felt an added weight on the bed. I looked up to see Techno, sitting on the edge of the bed.

"Hey, bro," he muttered softly, giving a slight grin.

"Hey," came my quiet response.

"I uh... I stopped. I dug out all the bottles of scotch and... threw them all away." I was shocked at this, but also rather skeptical. Techno had always valued his drink.

"What made you decide to kick it?" I asked.

"Well," my brother began, "the day you got nabbed by Ikusu... I was sitting on the couch in the living room, and was thinking to myself. Hasaki came up and sat next to me, and tried to talk to me. He asked me to play catch with him... and... I had a hangover... so, I told him I had a headache, and didn't feel well. I told him to go play by himself. The kid looked up at me and said, 'you always feel bad. You never want to do anything but work and sleep, uncle Tech.' He walked away... and, then I realized how badly I had screwed up. All those times you offered to help me with my problems... and I was too proud and foolish to accept. All the time I could have spent with my nephew... that I spent in bed with a hangover. I finally figured out... that I _was_ wasting my life away." Tears had gathered in my brother's eyes, and his ears were tucked back against his lowered head. He was truly ashamed... but, I was deeply proud of him. I wrapped my arms around my brother, and pulled him close, trying to provide some measure of comfort. My own eyes now had tears welling in them.

"Thank you," I managed to choke out through tears. "This is the best gift you have ever given me... Now I know that you give a damn about your life..."

Due to all of the 'physical and mental strain' I had endured through the previous days, Gate decided to put me on leave. Cases began to pop up here and there of Humans First members being murdered... but no evidence was found to pin the deaths on Ikusu. I was somewhat relieved at this. Despite his past wicked deeds, I truly believed that Ikusu had changed, that his mind was still adjusting to his new freedom. Jasmine Summers transferred to the Tampa base, in the area where Humans First attacks were most rampant. She was quickly promoted to Head of Staff in the medical centers at the base. Most relieving of all, however, was my renewed faith in the brother that I had all but lost.

THE END


End file.
